As you can see, the poverty rate in America was falling at a rapid clip, but progress stopped once the so-called War on Poverty began. And ever since, the poverty rate has stayed relatively constant, oscillating between 11 percent-15 percent.

To be sure, this chart doesn’t prove that Lyndon Johnson’s redistribution programs – such as Medicaid – halted the progress that was being made.

But surely these numbers show that the folks at the Associated Press were smoking crack when they wrote that the War on Poverty led to “gains.”

The left, incidentally, does have their spin on the story. They basically cherry pick two data points and make it seem as if the diminished rate of progress during that time period was because of the War on Poverty.

…poverty never fell below a 1973 low of 11.1 percent. That low point came after President Lyndon Johnson’s war on poverty, launched in 1964, created Medicaid, Medicare and other social welfare programs. “I’m reluctant to say that we’ve gone back to where we were in the 1960s. The programs we enacted make a big difference…,” Edelman said.

That’s creative, but not convincing. What the data really show is that we were making good progress before LBJ imposed all his redistribution. But that rapid progress turned into slow progress and then basically came to a grinding halt within a couple of years. If that’s evidence of success, I’d hate to see what failure looks like.

But that’s a separate issue. The main point of this post is to expose a remarkably flawed and inaccurate bit of bias embedded in an Associated Press report. I suspect it was accidental bias, presumably from some reporter who lives in a bubble and automatically assumed that government programs are like fairy dust and have magical effects.

this entire issue is a joke……….The “Renewable Fuels Association/EPA cabal” are just as guilty of murder as is the Denver shooter…….preplanned infanticide.
(and yes, I’ve posted this before)

There is no potential food shortage at all. 42% of Americas biggest cash crop, corn, is sent down the rat hole called the ethanol program. 39 million acres wasted. 78,000 btus of energy used to produce a gallon of ethanol that contains…74,000 btus of energy. The only parallel would be Chairman Maos program of melting down pots and pans to make more pots and pans. An ethanol “industry” that consumes, from production to processing, more fresh water than the sanitary needs of every man, woman and child in the country. The corn ethanol producers don’t even believe their own narrative any longer, regardless. It’s now a “national defense” issue. The Renewable Fuels Association, in Des Moine Iowa of all places, is literally frantic over calls in Congress to limit or end the scam in light of the drought. It should end……….according to UNICEF, 3 million Black infants will die on the African continent this year because of corn price increases. The ethanol program is not only an economic fraud….it’s murder as well. But, it has its supporters—like the erstwhile Republican Senator, Chuck Grassley, member of the Senate Ag Committee …..who farms 4000 acres of Iowa corn ground-and loves the mother of all subsidies: The Federal Crop Insurance program. Besides, the cows and chickens would really appreciate it if the corn ethanol program….was put out to pasture. And by the way, without the ethanol handout, John Deere is a $42.00 stock.

As redistribution decreases motivation amongst both rich and poor,…
And as decreased motivation brings sub-par growth rates,…
How are we going to compensate for the steady, and relentlessly compounding loss of our once envious relative prosperity in the world?…
By more redistribution, of course.

The vicious cycle of HopNChange closes.

There is no return from Europeanization.

Many one cultures have been unable to resist this siren song to decline. The script will reliably play once again, this time for America whose citizens took their superior prosperity for granted and embarked on a quest to mimic the rest of the world, primarily Europe.

Three billion people have awakened, and the Western world is reacting to the competition by decreasing incentives to engage in exceptional work. Collectivism and an environment of solidarity is a natural reaction and may provide comfort in decline, but it is exactly the wrong prescription, so the writing is on the wall.

Being in the middle class of a country whose standing in the world is declining means that your once envious standard of living is converging to the world average. In anything but the short term, this relentlessly compounding effect dwarfs the cacophony of all other politico-economic minutiae that pervade the news and political campaigns. Temporary, small, and confusing revivals aside, the path Americans have charted for themselves is one of Europeanization and decline.

[…] rare occasions, when I get really irked, I complain about media bias. Examples include this AP story on poverty, the Brian Ross Tea Party slur, this example of implicit bias by USA Today, and a Reuters report on […]

[…] rare occasions, when I get really irked, I complain about media bias. Examples include this AP story on poverty, the Brian Ross Tea Party slur, this example of implicit bias by USA Today, and a Reuters report on […]

[…] rare occasions, when I get really irked, I complain about media bias. Examples include this AP story on poverty, the Brian Ross Tea Party slur, this example of implicit bias by USA Today, and a Reuters report on […]

Anything to do with Liberal bias is not accidental. Reporters such as this one are schooled to misread statistics and use them to support their ideology. The statistics don’t have to be accurate. They just have to be usable out of context or simply fabricated..

[…] rare occasions, when I get really irked, I complain about media bias. Examples include this AP story on poverty, the Brian Ross Tea Party slur, this example of implicit bias by USA Today, and a Reuters report on […]